Hot Sauces

Hot sauce is life… Well, for some people. Hot sauce is a growing market with IBISWorld valuing it to be a little over $1.2 billion this year. Major sectors of the hot sauce market are exports, grocery wholesalers, and food product manufacturers. Major players in the industry include companies like McIlhenny Co., Frank’s Red Hot, Bruce Foods Corp, and Huy Fong Foods (e.g., Sriracha), but they only occupy a little under 40% of the market. This means that there’s room for a little over 60% of the market for other companies. That’s a little over $730 million! Who occupies that 60%? A good portion of it is held by small-batch, specialty processors. However, this portion of the market is saturated with small-batch processors. So these companies strongly depend on key success factors like branding, marketing strategies, and public relations because current trends in the hot sauce market, as well as food in general, are moving towards more socially conscious products through purposeful purchases.

So you may be thinking, “I love hot sauce, and I want to make a more purposeful purchase. Where do I start?” I always loved hot sauce as a kid. My love for hot sauce and feeling discontent with the available hot sauces on the market inspired me to create my own sauces which eventually gave birth to Pepplish Provisions. However, I’m not here to tout my stuff (even though they’re the best, *wink wink*), but to offer an objective review of three sauces I would consider to fall under what may be a purposeful purchase. The three companies are Marshall’s Haute Sauce, Queen Majesty Hot Sauce, and The Bronx Hot Sauce. I chose these three because they are small-batch, specialty processors who are socially conscious. In addition, I chose sauces from each company that were similar in sauce type. Below is a chart detailing the side-by-side comparison of their sauces.